VALLE dell’ORCO

Valle dell’Orco & Val Soana

This guide book is the summary of many days spent up and down the valleys, of so many years climbing and is the opportunity to rediscover old friends and get to know new ones. But above all it has been a great opportunity to embark on something new to promote and emphasise the value of the place where we live.

The guide describes crags found in the lower valley as well as the famous Caporal and Sargent walls, including, after such a long time since the last publication, the Soana valley, with Vallone di Forze and the lateral valley of Piantonett, as far as the edge of Lake Teleccio.

Besides the numerous mulipitches, there are lots of crags which even offer trad routes, itineraries which up to 10 years ago attracted the attention of only a few people, but which now motivate many climbers from all over Europe to come and climb here.

Stefano Dalla Gasperina, born 1965, I started to go to the mountains in the valleys of the Gran Paradiso area, especially those on the Piedmont side. So many mountains, so many friends, the wish to work in contact with nature and share its beauty with others, led me to become a Mountain Guide. A profession which I carry out in its original classic form by climbing mountains, trying to transmit passion and knowledge. The Orco Valley is where I grew up, and where I got to know the mountains, where I started to ski and climb, and is obviously an important place for me and for this reason and when the opportunity arose, I didn’t hesitate to get involved, tackling a delicate and demanding job.

Matteo Dalla Gasperina, born 1999, last of the “Millenials”, I was born and brought up in this magnificent valley, where probably everyone with a passion for cracks would love to live. I owe my passion for climbing, or rather the mountains in all their guises, to those who passed on this love, in general to all my family which has always lived in the Alps, but above all to my father Luca and certainly to, my “Uncle Guide” Stefano. I was very young when I started climbing with my father, then over the years my passion for alpinism kept growing, from my first experiments on the the rock faces near home with my long-standing friend Riccardo, to the various repetitions of the most beautiful routes in the valley and in the Alps. For the past few years I have been involved with the family business, operating in the field of removing loose materials from slopes and their consolidation, so I take off my harness Friday night and then put it on again Saturday morning to climb some beautiful mountain.